


Always Winter, Never Christmas

by ImpureTale



Series: Spindles and Thorns [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Parenthood, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-01-15 22:37:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12330249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpureTale/pseuds/ImpureTale
Summary: After the events of "Hat Trick" and during and after "The Return," Mr. Gold attempts to check in on Jefferson. Meanwhile, in flashbacks to the Enchanted Forest, we examine how the Mad Hatter's professional relationship with the Dark One and the life of his wife, Priscilla, came to their ends.





	1. Chapter 1

THE ENCHANTED FOREST - YEARS AGO

"There you are!"

It took Priscilla entirely too long to notice that her husband had something on his mind when he came home, passed for concern, but she did not fail to notice the rather enormous basket of golden yarn he'd come back with. (And gold was gold, but she wished the Dark One dealt in coins instead of textiles, just for the sake of normalcy and fewer steps between them and being able to spend it. Jefferson seemed to like it, though, and didn't mind doing the trading to make it worth their while.) It was a large haul, and that was promising. 

He grabbed her by the waist and kissed her as soon as she was within arm's length, and for once it wasn't in the woman to dance out of reach, calling for him to pursue. They were jumpers; they loved chases, but they had their moments where their feet stayed on the ground, where their arms around each other became home. Right now, even though he'd only been gone two days, all either of them seemed to want to do was wrap themselves in each other's scents and be warm. She was expecting his recent trek to leave him smelling like grammar, all flat participles and overripe adverbs, but it wasn't quite there -- a different flavor of nonsense, the sort of whiff you'd get for checking under your bed before going to sleep. Still, there was something of him beneath that, of leather and rose and oak, and she was satisfied enough that she didn't immediately ask.

"Did you go into town?" he asked her, his voice conspiratorial, like there were other ears in the house to listen in. "You did."

She smiled against his cheek. "I did. ...The sickness will pass." Said not with resignation, but a secret they both somewhat suspected equally.

"I knew it."

And not much of one.

"Did he tell you?"

"It turns out I didn't really need to." Jefferson pulled back to look at her with a sigh, and there was an apology in his eyes. "He congratulated me."

Priscilla couldn't help but laugh. She had never once met the Dark One in person, but Jefferson's impressions of him painted a clear enough picture, and one thing that remained consistent was his tendency to be a step ahead of everyone, even when it was none of his damn business. "Well, I'm not surprised. He also knew you were going to ask me to marry you." He sent a bonus home with him then, too.

"In fairness, I planned to tell him that."

She took the basket out of his hand and set it aside. The house, new enough that the perfume of fresh lumber and moss on stone still permeated the space, was also (understandably) a little spare. Really, it was just their bed and a fire for cooking and a couple stools, and then trunks, some of them pretending to be tables. All of them full of belongings, from clothes to trinkets to books, that they in their infinite wisdom decided they needed more than furniture. Furniture that would soon need to include a cradle, and eventually another bed. Jefferson would joke that a trunk would be fine for a baby bed to start, and even as she joked with that imagined impression of him about how they could all sleep in one and save some coin, the part of her that wasn't a little girl anymore would get louder and louder until she'd be thinking of nothing but a proper place for a child to sleep and eventually bookshelves and tables.

That part wasn't especially loud, yet, but baby steps toward practical. They had time.

"What do you think?" She raised an eyebrow at him, even now shifting from one priority to another that'd been put off. "Time at last to get those wedding rings we never got?"

Jefferson winced. "How much do we still owe the carpenter?"

And Priscilla also winced, because when both of them were thinking too practically, the game never worked.

He had a point, but they always had points. And sometimes better ones. Fun ones. Points that led to enjoying their money rather than doing especially adult things with it. It was another little chase of theirs, really, to go back and forth until they ultimately agreed to take some weight off their shoulders or go dancing with it. Because they each of them took turns being the voice of reason, it was easy to excuse themselves when they chose to be a little exuberant.

After years of this, they came out all right, didn't they?

"We should have plenty leftover," she offered, taking her turn to be the less serious one for once. "And you'll make a ton on your next fetch, yeah?" The Dark One always seemed to have another journey for him, maybe a few weeks down the line, but he never failed to tell him so he could prepare. "You weren't gone long for this one, and he's been giving you shorter jobs for a while. You know that means he'll have a long one coming up."

"There isn't a next job."

That...was not an answer she planned for. Jumping wasn't a regular occupation for anybody that did it; the people that paid you generally wanted one thing and then they were done with you, but with the Dark One, Jefferson had something approaching regular work. A career of it, even, and she never thought in a thousand years that something might change. The Dark One in all his mystery was too oddly consistent to change.

"What do you mean? ...Did he fire you?" Her eye flickered to the basket, and because theirs was not a world where the idea of a severance package really existed, her conclusions were perhaps a little more hyperbolic. "Shit, did you _steal that?"_

Jefferson didn't even snap-react to that. His face squinched like someone had just told him his outfit was tacky -- which would have been, in short, nonsensical and jealous ramblings. But he recovered with a breath, his answer calm and oddly...adult. "I mean I'm not taking any more jobs from him."

Wait, that also sounded ridiculous.

"...We need to start staying put. Get work we can do here."

He spoke with resignation, and what was not ridiculous was to understand that even discussing breaking up with his line of work came with almost as much pain as he might have breaking up with her. They _loved_ being portal jumpers, loved exploration, loved a little danger, loved stepping into a place and not even knowing what color the sky would be. Priscilla herself felt a terrible weight form in her stomach even now, because what she knew she loved the most, just on her own, was that there was so much more out there.

And true, there was a lot still to see here in the Forest, but that still turned map lines into walls for her, walls that reached into the sky like beanstalks, walls that bled your fists when you beat against them until your life force spelled out "THE END" across the bricks.

And how much smaller would those walls be if they were to stay close to the new ones standing around them now, to the roof blocking their view of the stars, worlds beyond theirs, their limit somewhere in the black and far away toward infinity? This house that they wanted, a place to come back to, a place to make their own, a place that nobody could come and take while they were sleeping.  

A place that needed a cradle.

Since the first time she told Jefferson that she loved him, Priscilla knew she wanted to have a family with him. She wanted to marry him, have a home, have children. Perhaps, she just thought they'd have a few more years out there before digging their roots in.

Jefferson saw that in her face, just as clearly as she knew he must be thinking the same things, now. "There's a kid coming." It was obvious by now, but it stung to hear him say it, and that only meant they probably needed to say it out loud again and again. "What if something happens to one of us? Or both of us?"

He looked like he was about to cry. She was already there. Funny how doing the right thing always seemed to hurt like that for both of them. When the Hell did they grow up so fast?

Priscilla pushed the heel of her hand at one of her wet eyes. "Yeah." She sniffed. "You're right." Say it again. Say it and remember you mean it. "I mean, of course you're right. I don't want our kids wondering where we're at all the time. I want 'em to know that we're coming home from work at the end of the day. That they can find us." Her mind whipped between _what do we do?_ and _keep talking out loud and make it real._ "You can sew. I'm good with growing, and we're not bad hunters." That was something. That put it out there. That made it possible. "We can make this work, yeah?"

He was nodding, minute, but believing. "Yeah." And they sat stock still in a long moment of believing before falling yet again into each other's arms, long enough to tell each other they were in agreement, that things were happening. But their minds were thinking practical in unison now, and she had to keep going. She knew neither of them would sleep tonight if they didn't feel like they had a plan and knew exactly what they'd be doing when daylight broke the next day.

"This money," she began. "It'll be a good nest egg. We can just pay off the carpenter in installments like we planned. Make it last longer."

Her husband came with her, with the same uneasiness. "Or we can pay off our debt now and start off clean. But with less. And we're going to need things."

"Yeah," she half-laughed. "Look at this place. And I want so much for this baby. For us. We're not going to have enough left for everything."  

"And if we start that work, it'll be enough to support but maybe not enough to put back. Not enough to prepare." She felt the brush of his eyelashes against her neck as Jefferson shut his eyes and breathed her in. "I didn't want to come home and think." Neither of them liked thinking that much after a job in the Kingdom of Wisdom, even after short ones. It was none-too-surprising that they tended to blow right through whatever gold they made from those missions. The temptation to be a little foolish and a lot thoughtless was often too great. In truth, the amount of restraint he was showing tonight was breaking records. "Can we take a few days? Just be home for a while?"

"I want to, but I also don't know if I can. I don't think you know if you can either. Because what we're waiting for is deciding whether we're really not going jumping anymore." And not just because they would be tempted to spend on things they didn't need.

"No… No, we have to agree that part's decided tonight, or I won't make it a few days."

Oh thank the gods. "Agreed." But it didn't feel settled. Even with a mountain of plush-soft money staring her right in the face anytime she glanced away, all it did was leave her worrying. It was happening. She was a grown woman now. With responsibilities growing in her belly.

But the moonlight drifted in from the open window, reminding her the sky was still out there, and the stars.

Her breath shook when she took it at last. "...I guess I just want a little more insurance. What's going to happen to this gold we've got now? Be honest."

Jefferson nuzzled close and mumbled against her shoulder. Rolling her eyes a little, she stroked his hair, drawing his answer out. "...Even if we write off some debts, we're going to blow through the rest quickly."

"Right you are."

"So, insurance."

They found their way to the bed and got off their feet, sitting and drawing apart, but for one hand holding the other. Priscilla took her turn for what it was. She was the one who said insurance. She needed to have the first ideas. "I have a message from a client. I've been putting it off because I've been ill, but it's a job."

A bold first move, since the one certain thing other than the coming of this baby was that they were going to retire, but it was an idea.

"They're offering good money. It'd be one last go before I'm even showing, because once that happens, it won't be long before I won't be much help to anybody. But if we agree right now, I can do it, Jefferson."

"Priss."

She had to tell herself this wasn't her grasping at one last chance to be a little irresponsible. It felt right. It felt like it was the best possible thing they could do, so she held on. "We'll go together, get it done even faster. One last adventure. The kind we already know." She wet her lips, trying to read his face, but for the first time, he was blank, scrambling to find some other answer, some flaw in that logic. "Our last one _should_ be together," she pressed, and that, she believed the most. She wanted to say goodbye to the multiverse beside him, not vicariously, not after the fact. She grasped his hand and pulled it to her stomach, fleetingly wondering what it would feel like months from now, when their hands would feel movement.

Jefferson's face warmed into a smile. Yes. They were both certain. They were ready. "One last adventure out there, and then we start a new one here."

She snorted. It was what she was leaning toward, but it came out sounding so dramatic that she was glad he took the arrow for her and said it himself. In mere seconds they were both laughing.

Tomorrow he would likely go to pay the carpenter and a few other people they owed. She would contact the client, arrange a meeting. For now, they breathed.

 

GREAT WOOD - NARNIA - SIX MONTHS LATER

In all the long winter, nobody had been foolish enough to attempt to ambush the White Queen's secret police, especially not in a part of the wood that was rife with their own smell and even in long snowfall frequently wore the patter of their tracks -- a place where they were most likely to detect intruders or prey. There was something off in the air, a tinge of something that was them but might not have been, like the aroma of blood on your own mouth after a kill, and that was the most that any single wolf could say. That would have been enough to have Captain Maugrim's hackles up if two from the pack hadn't disappeared more than two days ago, all with one fugitive Daughter left to capture. The patrols were to do more than to look -- they were to search under every snowbank.

That was precisely what sprung the traps -- laid and covered in such rapid succession and in such close quarters to each other that to step out of the way of one was to catch your paw in another. When three wolves went down (or up -- one unfortunate carried up into the trees by a net), the last two scattered in the dark. The clouds stole the moon, and their howls faded into the distance, with not a scent nor track to tell them where to find what had left this misfortune for them.

When they returned with reinforcements, two of the captured wolves were dead, the other missing. No tracks in the snow, and only traces of other wolves, everywhere.

The newest disappeared was Shadr -- one of their youngest and most promising; his loss would be felt. While the promise of the White Queen meant there would always be meat to fill their bellies and prey to hunt, no matter how long the winter, a bad season of mating could still take its toll.

Shadr would wake in a cave hours later, memories only of the smell of wolf fur and blood and that peculiar _other_ even more intense than ever before a blow to the head sent him limp. Awake again his paws were tied, but his jaw was free. He did not have long to try and chew at his restraints before he was no longer alone. He saw and could still smell fur in the dark, but his assailant rose to a height far taller than any creature of the wood, on two paws, and few ever carried fire.

He saw the ears of a wolf, but then a hairless and piercing visage of a Daughter of Eve. _That_ Daughter of Eve, the whiteness of her face haloed by dirt and dried blood -- not his, but distinctly lupine. Sheltering her body, ill-formed for the harsh winter and big with cub, was the unmistakable skin of at least one of his brothers.

Those brothers.

The lost ones.

The horror of her appearing tinged his mind with grudging respect, the image of a she-wolf full of new life that retains the grim promise of death, a grotesque mimicry, but fitting.

"Do you know who I am?"

His massive head nodded.

Her long-fingered paw tightened on the torch she carried. "Speak or I'll set you ablaze right now and eat your guts before you're even dead."

"I know who you are."

"Do you believe I can kill you?"

In the dim light, in his peripheral vision he could see bones. He wouldn't have even needed that, with half of a familiar wolf's face grinning macabre at him from the top of her head.

"I do."

"Good. You have one chance to avoid that."

Shadr was young, and he was promising, and the others had been too old and too stubborn to save their own hides. The Daughter of Eve sought to remind him of that. A hiss of cold metal that glinted orange in the dark as she withdrew a blade, stained with previous kills.

"Tell me where my husband is. Where is Jefferson?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jefferson wanders the streets of Storybrooke, recalling connections in this world and back in the Enchanted Forest, while in his past, he and Priscilla strike a deal with the Fox and the Cat to take a trip to Narnia.

STORYBROOKE - LATE FEBRUARY

Falling out of a second story window can have a number of effects on a person. Most of them physical. Some of them potentially fatal. The madman in his enormous palace of a house was at least partially charmed to have his memories of other worlds, of his real self: because unlike Jefferson the eccentric and idly wealthy bachelor, Jefferson the thief and portal jumper remembered how to take a fall without dying -- and get moving as quickly as possible. It was only after the adrenaline wore off, long after Sheriff Swan and "Spot" took their leave, that despair got its fingers around his neck again. 

He failed. 

_ She  _ failed. 

The hat didn't work, and now as dawn broke over the city of Storybrooke he couldn't sort out in his head whether he thought making it work would take him back to that moment he left his Grace with the neighbors, maybe to a Queen of Hearts holding his freedom over his freshly de-severed head in exchange for the prize he would have held, or if the magic would have been enough to break the curse, something he wanted less. It would have meant this second Jefferson, who had medications to pick up at the pharmacy, would still be there. That  _ Paige  _ would still be there, alongside Grace. The only respite he might have had, in that case, would have been walking into town and knowing nobody who remembered him would think he was crazy. They would all be too busy being crazy themselves. 

How ghoulish. 

He missed watching her ride her bike to school because of this, another promise broken; the next time he looked at a clock, it was fifteen minutes past the first bell. (Hoped she didn't. Hoped her cursed parents drove her. The roads were too slick, but she would chance it if they stopped her. His Grace was never afraid of scraped knees, never afraid of falling. Or jumping.)

His fist left a dent in a door frame, but the pain shocked him out of crying. 

Hiding out for a few days would have been what a typically wise person chose to do, but wisdom to Jefferson, at least today, was thinking a little more of other Jefferson. Other Jefferson who needed a med refill. 

And pills sounded like a  _ great  _ idea when you spent a whole night hoping yourself into crushing disappointment. 

Ducking into town had been easier than he expected; Emma Swan was conveniently busy, too busy to be looking for the man that tried to hold her prisoner. If she weren't, she'd have to think about everything he said, everything she saw. So she would continue to support her friend in the jail cell. She would talk with her boy (Henry, not Regina's father Henry; little boy Henry). She would drive her shitty little car around. All of these things would happen while she didn't want to think, because she was not other Jefferson, and she therefore didn't have pills. 

Or a wine cellar. 

By the time Jefferson thought that maybe drinking himself asleep was the better option, he was already walking out of the pharmacy with a brown paper bag in hand, medication refilled. While still crazy, "why not both?" at least didn't sound like a friendly option, and he privately congratulated himself.

He didn't know the pharmacist, or rather who he was before the curse. A couple of the others, he did. Prince Charming had gone in for milk and very nearly bumped into him coming out. 

Milk from other animals. How human of him. 

Back in the checkout, he knew Cinderella  _ definitely  _ had a cold, as did her infant son, wet-faced and gurgling in discomfort from her hip, and the air around them had felt thick with the misery you could catch if you weren't careful. She still eyed him with distrust, because wasn't he that eccentric recluse? The one that made that scene some time ago? (When  _ years,  _ it had been  _ years,  _ more than a decade and she'd been scrubbing floors and pregnant as Hell even ten years ago, twenty years ago,  _ almost thirty years  _ of swollen ankles and tiny feet stomping on her bladder, but  _ he  _ had been the spectacle.  _ Him. _ )

Most people didn't remember, because whether it felt like a day or a week, it really had been so long ago, and life had gone on as normal just as soon as they were told to let it go. The ones that did fleetingly recall, maybe only a handful knew the last sheriff led him away, to the back of a car and then the hospital.

One or two might have even heard the  _ mayor  _ had gone to see the unfortunate young heir, to check up on him. She was shrewd, but she  _ cared,  _ didn't she?

Jefferson stepped into an alley when he caught sight of yellow in the street -- not Swan's Volkswagen, he now saw with relief, but that was enough to tell him he was done risking it for the day. 

_ Where are my car keys?  _

This was about when he remembered he walked down here, which was why his nose was running and his cheeks were burning like he'd been hit in the face with a snowball. 

He took the avenue that would eventually lead him up into the hills, passing Granny's and feeling his stomach turn at the sickly sweet aroma of butter and syrup. He passed Leroy coming out with a cup of coffee that probably had a little extra to take the edge off the morning chill. 

Jefferson didn't know who he was before, didn't know his hand would have been more at home carrying a pickaxe, but he did remember him mopping the floors in his hospital room while he was strapped to the bed, how he opened a window for him so the fumes wouldn't make him dizzy, how when a sobbing young man mumbled that he didn't want to be there, he answered with a sad "Me too, kid" and let him have his privacy and his dignity. 

Leroy didn't avoid looking at him like others did. He always nodded or waved. He always said something in passing, whether it was a gruff "how you doing?" or an understated "one day at a time" or something similar. While Jefferson was sure that Leroy didn't wrestle with his Enchanted Forest self for mental dominance, Leroy probably had an other Leroy, some remembered version of his life here when he still felt like there was something other than slopping out hospital rooms and a bottle of bourbon in front of him every day.

The closest thing he had to a friend in this sorry town was a relative stranger, and their relationship consisted of mutually respecting each other enough to occasionally acknowledge they were both unhappy and then immediately part ways again. 

A couple of men emerging from a little clothing boutique came fast enough to completely halt his trajectory, and he danced back a step to avoid bumping into them. "A complete waste of time, Gideon," the tallest of the two lamented; the array of shopping bags hanging from his elbow belied his words. He had a bit of a lanky look about him, with pale eyes and strawberry blond hair, and his clothing was nearly identical to Jefferson's, something the mad hatter took in with blank unsurprise. The man finished looping a blue scarf about his neck, for the moment taking no notice of him. "I told you they wouldn't have come in yet."

His partner, younger by a stretch and equally fashionable, hooked a finger on one of the bags to peek inside, coming up with a smile in his eyes that said whatever reason he'd given for popping out here in the freezing weather, he'd gotten what he wanted. He briefly cut a glance in Jefferson's direction, acknowledging as a feline would that they had an audience (which was to say barely at all), only enough to draw the other man's attention away to stop him realizing his game. His focus redirected, Gideon brightened. "Breakfast?" he quipped. 

"Capitol idea." 

Jefferson had to step out of the way, not because neither of them saw him before starting in his direction, but because the couple assumed he would. For the taller man's part, he did offer a short "Pardon me" as he went by, even if a robot would have said it with more sincerity. 

They disappeared down the road, either toward Granny's or their car, and Jefferson fleetingly thought that it was strange not to see tails peeking out the backs of their overcoats. He crossed the street to carry on in his own direction.

Unnoticed, Mr. Gold returned to his shop after a morning spent at the jail. He caught sight of Jefferson's gait and paused, keys in hand. 

  
  


THE ENCHANTED FOREST - MANY YEARS AGO

A surprised puff of air told all it needed to; Jefferson recognized their clients just as soon as they wandered into view, but it couldn't have prepared him for precisely how they appeared. The Fox and the Cat were called as much, because there was little else you could call them. Hangers on from a mission Priscilla took through Wonderland about a year ago, they were exactly what it said on the tin: A fox, and a cat. 

The Fox's frock coat, vest, cravat and hat were new, and if they weren't sized for the creature, Jefferson might have thought he'd been robbed by adorable adorable thieves. 

The Cat (still quite naked as a cat should be) was dainty, barely reaching Jefferson's knee. He was also the one you could almost miss, because it seemed in mere seconds, he was up in a tree -- not by some skittish reflex but an apparent lack of desire to stand around on his hind paws anymore. His blue eyes caught the light of Jefferson's lantern and glowed from within, containing deep thoughts and intriguing secrets, holding on half a promise he might share them. ...He then promptly stretched out across a larger branch and carried on ignoring them; the only sign of life and listening was the sway of his long, brown tail.

The Fox stood a towering three feet in height, his bushy tail nearly equal in mass. He toyed with a monocle attached to his vest, breathing on it and polishing it like a little banker, and then promptly returned it to where he found it -- not over his eye. Because why would he even need that, other than to look flashy? For a creature whose long muzzle and vulpinal parentage might leave a perpetual almost-grin on his face, he was doing a grand job of looking unimpressed. 

"I was beginning to wonder if you might have changed your mind." 

"Thank you for waiting." Priscilla curtsied for them. She and Jefferson had gone on several missions together by now, enough that the sight of talking animals didn't really unsettle either, but she was the one among the two of them that'd worked with these ones before. ...Sometimes wild goose chases, so she always made a point to get half up front, and they made good for all the trouble it could be. 

"For you, Madame, always," the Fox returned smoothly, doffing his hat. "And this must be Jefferson. I believe I'm to offer the two of you congratulations on your marriage." 

Jefferson cleared his throat. "Five months ago." 

"Was it really? My dear, you might have said something during our last arrangement; I would have added a bonus." The Fox turned in place, his little black paws looking for and smoothing out wrinkles. 

"You look...rather strapping," Priscilla noted, stammering. "In your clothes. Are they new?"

"Oh, these old things? Hardly." 

Above their heads, Cat mumbled something that wasn't quite audible enough for the couple to understand.

Fox's ears pricked up, and he gekkered at his lazing companion. "They don't need to know." A furtive glance between the tree branch and the jumpers. "Oh fine, fine. We've been doing well for ourselves, and I am very fashionable now. Congratulate us; we intend to share!" 

A much easier to hear "Get on with it."

"I agree," said Jefferson. 

"No one appreciates the nuances of small talk," Fox lamented, seeming to deflate for a moment. "Honestly. But yes. Your mission. I take it that you are...both going?" 

Jefferson and Priscilla shared a glance. "Yes."

"Splendid! It may require both of you, but the pay  _ is _ handsome."

Neither of them were strangers to employers who could talk in circles, and negotiations tended to go better with both of them there anyway, so they could take turns asking all the pertinent questions. Jefferson leaned against the tree, crossing his arms. "What's the destination?"

Fox appeared to be examining his nails in a deliberate attempt to act casual. "To our former home, actually."

"Wait, Wonderland?" --Jefferson hadn't meant to interrupt Priscilla, but the question flew from his mouth like a reflex slap, and he floated her an apologetic look. Could she blame him for not wanting to see another nonsense world so soon?

"Egad, no. That's simply where Madame found us. You see, while Cat and I are masters of jumping (owing to our exceptional breeding), we are not especially good at  _ jumping,  _ so that is where you fine children of Adam and Eve come in." He smoothed his forepaws down the front of his vest. "Circumstances of a rather delicate, ah,  _ political  _ nature led to our need to exit our home world with great haste, regardless of where it took us, and we're neither of us especially keen to go back. We quite like it here, and we also enjoy being alive. But we would also like a little edge. Our best chance to make a go of it, if you will." 

Which -- when he put it that way, it made perfect sense to them. Wasn't that why they were doing this? Familiarity did not dull Priscilla's mind, however. She raised an eyebrow. "But you said you were doing well."

"Oh, we  _ are.  _ Just look at this pocket watch!" Fox produced one, from his pocket, even. Gold and shining and...not ticking at all. Because why would a fox need to tell time or understand it was broken? "Money certainly doesn't hurt when you want to succeed here, but it's hardly the only thing one requires. All the coin in the world is nothing if one has the right magic, and having both? Especially advantageous."

If these two ever met the Dark One, they would wind up with the worst contract. It wasn't that the Fox didn't have  _ some  _ sound logic at work. Jefferson just knew he was seeing red with every other word, and he didn't work for Rumpelstiltskin for all those years without learning to be at least  _ somewhat _ cautious. "...What sort of magic are you after?"

"Transformation!" Fox practically bounced in place with the word. "You have to be a person to really get ahead anywhere, and we  _ are  _ people, but not by your world's standards. People here live in dens above the ground! They wear...  _ fancy _ things!"

Cat's drawling: "They drink other animals' milk." 

"They drink --  _ what? _ No they don't!" 

"That cheese at breakfast came from cow milk."

" _ Is that what that was? _ "

Priscilla, with fewer chuckles than her husband, exhaled a patient sigh. "Gentlemen, please. You were saying?" This must have been normal for her.

"Yes!" Fox returned his attention to them, shooting Cat a last mistrusting, lowkey-horrified glance before sobering. "My apologies. What's the most important is that people, here, are children of Adam and Eve.  _ Human _ , to borrow your parlance. Or at the very least, they can make themselves  _ look  _ that way. Fashionable and adorable as we are, we've still got to look the part, haven't we? And we're finding that clothing can only do so much." 

Jefferson shrugged. "You know you could... _ hire _ almost any magician worth anything here to do that for you." 

"Yes, but then  _ we're _ not in control of it. If something goes wrong, that's a whole other trip, and even more money we're out. We're subject to their pricing, and magicians here are so...esoteric. And mysterious." 

"And preachy," Cat interjected.

" _And_ _preachy_ ," Fox concurred. "We rather prefer the way _you_ price things. It's more honest. Easier to measure. Goes _clink_ when you put it in a bag." 

Neither of the humans there could fault their logic. Jefferson might have gone ahead and taken gold thread and yarn in trade, but Priscilla never would have, and neither of them would have taken magical trinkets in exchange for work, either. This was likely why she continued to work with people like these two. "So what is in your world that's going to give you the power of transformation?" she asked.

The Fox (with periodical interruptions from Cat) told them of their world, Narnia, a world of talking animals and really only rumors of children of Adam and Eve. He spoke of a long winter, which had been in place since the White Queen took hold there, ancient and powerful and with a trove of equally ancient and powerful objects one could hope to steal -- most of them entirely too big for someone Fox or Cat's size to wield with efficiency. Of especial interest to Fox was a ceremonial knife, one she did not often use or keep with her. 

"Practically a sword for one of us," he explained, "but it would be portable for either of you."

"And it...transforms things."

"Well, that's certainly not  _ all  _ it does, but it seems to be her favorite trick. Most of her magical items do that, and that's all we really want it for, and if you nip out of there quickly enough, she won't even really miss it." 

And of course she would be keeping it somewhere in her home, a palace of ice as the Fox would describe it. This was nothing to either jumper. Both had stolen away into castles and strongholds before, coming out with objects and even people when the situation called for it -- and when the price was right. 

Prompted either by the right query or the right narration, Fox dug into the base of the tree, shifting aside leaves and branches, and pulled out a chest, almost as big as he was. "Ten thousand gold. Half before you leave. Half when you get back, as per our usual arrangements." 

Well. That was certainly a lot of  _ clink,  _ wasn't it? Jefferson wasn't greedy. Neither of them were, however extravagant their tastes could get when they were letting go, but the hunger you felt when you loved all things money greatly differed from the hunger you felt when you simply  _ needed  _ it. That was a harder pang to ignore when your job was to go on asking pertinent questions. "Neither of us have doorways to this world." No door in his hat, nor any one that Priscilla's magic key could create had ever gone to Narnia.

"That's perfectly fine," Fox waved them off, taking a step away from the chest, silently giving them permission to approach it. "After months of careful planning and searching, we do. So do we have an accord?"

They shared looks. This was exactly what they had wanted, and by the sound of it, they would have all they needed to finish the job quickly. Home again in a few days, with all their lives ahead of them. 

Jefferson smiled. "When are we leaving?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, Jefferson and Priscilla are shown the portal to the world containing their final mission, and they are given the very special keys they need to use it. In Storybrooke, Jefferson wakes up to an unexpected visitor.

THE ENCHANTED FOREST -- MANY YEARS AGO

The Winter Palace hadn't been inhabited since the King's first wife passed away. It was not to Queen Regina's tastes, perhaps, or it suited the royal family better not to inhabit places with such unhappy memories. As it was, in the first few years after her departure, a half staff and a small contingent of guards kept the place up in the hopes that grief would fade, but the recent murder of the King whittled those hopes to nothing. The gates were locked, the last servants departed, and in the long summer in which this story takes place, the palace and the adjoining grounds sat in almost two years' worth of disrepair. Ivy had overtaken the iron grating of the gate doors (bars conspicuously wide enough for someone very small to fit through), the grasses and shrubs of the inner gardens now holding more ownership of the space than paving stones or statues ever could. The windows in the palace were dark and lifeless, great curtains and tapestries barring all light from entering and all eyes from looking in. The odd broken pane could be seen, the unchecked result of inclement weather.

Opening the gate was no real challenge. It was a better wager that Jefferson and Priscilla could not read as pick locks. It took a few minutes, but soon enough they were slipping inside. The risk of anyone coming along in the immediate future to find the gate ajar was nearly nonexistent. As it was, in a day's time, well after the dust had settled from this day's adventure, a traveler would happen by and make note of the change, and fearing (perhaps rightly) the presence of thieves, report to the guards. This little bit of happenstance would never affect either Jefferson or Priscilla, however.

"You never said anything about trespassing." Priscilla sounded almost playful when she mentioned this -- wandering up the mostly intact bridge toward the overgrown courtyard. Already they would see persistent tufts of green spiking out of the cobbled walkway.

Fox took it with good humor, an easy, if fastidious smile stretching his lips. "My dear, if you have misgivings about walking onto royal property and taking things, I have bad news about the mission you've already agreed to go on for us."

Jefferson chuckled to himself. He didn't have reason to bear any real ire for the queen, no matter the Dark One's particular fixation on her, but who was really harmed by this? A couple thieves living off property (and likely gold) that'd been left and forgotten. He watched the strange pair amble ahead of them, Cat still content to walk on all fours like the gods intended, his lithe tail standing with interest, Fox on two legs like any gentleman and swinging a stick he'd found like a much fancier cane. "So you've just...been squatting here. For how long?"

"Does it really matter? It's a fine den, and no one is using it."

"Don't foxes usually dig their own dens?"

Fox tapped the side of his long nose. "Work smart, my boy, not hard."

The inside of the palace was so much like a tomb that one might have thought that the King's first bride lay resting somewhere within. There were no lit torches, with so many windows covered over with heavy drapes, only a trickle of color from the larger, higher stained glass windows offering some semblance of illumination to the depths. Jefferson, lacking the eyes that their companions had (finding their way just fine, in the dark he could see their shapes ambling along unimpeded), found a torch he could light and wasted no time in doing so.

While every castle they had been in were beautifully unique structures, they tended to adhere to a few specific rules, the most relevant of which happened to be where the royal children slept -- in particular, the crowned prince or princess (or the next eldest sibling to a sitting monarch) would be housed above the kitchens, and this corner of the palace was usually in the innermost part of the skeleton, among the last areas that could be breached in the event of a raid. It was here that the Fox and the Cat appeared to have chosen to haunt, and in their defense, it was easily one of the safest places to pick.

It was also likely to be one of the few especially royal places that might not have as many treasures to it, especially since the King was guaranteed to have moved most, if not all of Snow White's belongings out when they left it last.

They were correct, to a degree. While stately, with elaborate furnishings and decor, there were no real treasures left behind. Not even those that would please a child first, such as simple toys.

What it did not fail to have, was a wardrobe. Larger almost than the bed, Priscilla and Jefferson's jokes about living in trunks didn't seem so ridiculous anymore, if they just grabbed a few of these.

Typically, however, wardrobes did not belch light.

...Intermittently, at different intensities.

Priscilla cleared her throat. "Gentlemen, I take it that's your portal?"

Cat alighted to the top of a bookshelf, watching it with wide, wary eyes. "That's it."

The two humans shared equally wary glances. "It looks…"

Jefferson gave an almost professional nod. "Unstable. It looks unstable."

"Oh, that's because it's not," Fox agreed. "But it's stable enough."

"Then why is it flickering?"

A vulpine shrug, which in itself is such an unusual thing to describe; it still did not prepare Jefferson for the part of his answer that would stay with him for the rest of his life: "Because it wants to close."

The doors he and Priscilla opened were merely doors. His hat: a hat, albeit a magic one that was in itself occasionally also a door. Doors didn't think and the only brains a hat could have were contained in the skull of a wearer. Neither, then, should _want_ anything.

Perhaps their host read the perplexity on his face. "Doorways to our world don't like to stay in one place for any convenient amount of time. They'll appear and then disappear on a whim, especially if you're trying to use them on purpose. This one, we're keeping open for you."

Priscilla seemed to be taken with a far less alarmed feeling of curiosity. "How?" she asked.

Fox's blue eyes gleamed with a touch of pride. "Magic, naturally."

If their accents had been more similar, Jefferson might have likened that a little more to the Dark One, who never seemed especially unfond of 'teaching moments' if he liked you and you asked the right questions, but who also would answer very similarly if he just didn't feel like working with you. "...You're not going to tell us how you managed this, are you?"

"You each have your own means of opening and passing through portals, yes? Do you explain to your clients how they work before you leave?"

Only if Jefferson was bringing a client with him, when they'd need to know for them to even survive. He didn't need anybody stealing his hat (that he'd locked away and hidden before coming, at his wife's insistence) once they thought his guard was down and they were certain how it worked. Priscilla's abilities were a touch harder to get consistent work out of, unless her clients had a portal for her. A hunter of many talents, she never had trouble finding game _or_ doors, and that was the form her jobs tended to take. Even her husband was not certain how she managed that; he just knew and trusted that she could do it.

Fox took this quiet reflection for acquiescence. "Good, glad we cleared that up." He straightened his cravat and went fishing into a chest of drawers that (based on the scuff marks on the floor), had been recently moved further away from the wardrobe. "As with your portals, this one comes with rules. We tried to keep this simple, but we only want the _right_ people coming back through, and so for this, you will have keys -- ah ha!" He came out holding a folded silk handkerchief, placing it gently on the bed, his tiny black claws unfolding it with a dainty touch. Laying there were twe find gold rings -- shining like mirrors and inlaid with stones that seemed to show with an inner light. " _Et voila._ If you hold one, you can use the door."

When the two of them had been discussing rings very recently, it was hard for Priscilla to disguise her wonder at seeing them, and Jefferson knew the moment she laid eyes on them, that they were very much in danger of coming home with them once this was all over. "Those are--"

Very expensive looking? A touch gaudy? Likely found here in the castle. Jefferson laughed. "Did you steal the King and Queen's old wedding rings?"

Fox gekkered at him in irritation. "Found. _Found._ " Really, the distinction really didn't need making between thieves (since all of them were) but the creature responded to _steal_ like it was a dirty word. "...See here, they can't have been so important if they were left behind, but they are important now! For you! Just...don't _lose_ them, or you won't be able to come back."

Priscilla didn't need to be told twice and had in fact already removed one of her gloves and slipped the smaller of the two rings on her finger. She modeled it on her hand with exuberant appreciation, even laying her hand against her sleeve to model it against the colors she was wearing -- as if she were adorned in full finery and not adventuring gear. Her eye caught Jefferson's and her smile was full of mischief as she took the other and came to dress his hand as well.

"You're enjoying this far too much," he mused -- and, all right. Maybe right now he was enjoying it too. They promised themselves they wouldn't worry too much about the conventional things unless they were absolutely needed. Putting off wedding rings was a simple, necessary thing, but the way she lit up told him it might have been something at least _she_ secretly wanted.

So barring any leftover trickery that might stay in the rings after this mission was over, each saw the other was happy, and they both knew they might wind up keeping them after all.

An odd trilling noise. Fox's way of clearing his throat. "I don't take it upon myself to criticize the dressing habits of the fur-less, but you two don't look particularly dressed for the cold." He bounced over to a trunk near the bed, the flourish of his enormous, bushy tail obscuring much of his movement. "We gathered some things when we first settled in here," he said as he threw the trunk open. "Find some heavy cloaks; you'll thank us later."

The trunk itself was deep and full enough as to seem it might also be magic, but find cloaks they did, nothing particularly ostentatious, as this would not serve them at all in the world beyond. Heavy scarves and other various odds and ends came out with them, all while Fox rattled off additional words of warning, seeming anxious to get them through the wardrobe as soon as possible.

Beware wolves and carrion birds; they are not your friends.

Try not to allow yourselves to be seen or you'll become very popular, very quickly, and likely with all the wrong people.

Don't trust anyone or anything that tries to keep you in one place for too long.

By the time the two stood before the blazing mouth of the wardrobe, they were laden so heavily that they welcomed the chill that seemed to drift out at them from the beyond. They had their assignment. They had a crudely drawn map.

...They had wedding rings.

Hands joined, it was not so much a leap or even a step through as a stumble, and Jefferson was down on his knees when they landed, the light around them brilliant and bright and _stingingly cold._ Slowly his eyes adjusted, first bringing into focus the gentle featherfall of snow, the black shapes of sleeping trees, the cool shock of pine green -- a white sky. Not gray. Not blue. But pure _white._

Priscilla helped him to his feet, and his boots slid on the fresh powder, bringing him down and pulling her with him. Even with warnings of enemy eyes still fresh in their ears, she uttered a giggle, couldn't help herself. "Are you all right?"

"You never bring me anywhere nice."

 

STORYBROOKE -- EARLY MARCH

Someone was in Jefferson's house. His wine-addled brain slept with the rest of him well into the late morning, and the sound of movement in another room set off a chain of useless little panics that really had nothing to do with the fact that the Sheriff might be here looking for him, or some other intruder had come to rob him. It was less than an hour to noon, well past time to watch Grace go to school. He would remember as he hurriedly tried to dress, realized he was still dressed from the day before, and tried and failed to straighten himself out -- with no awareness of how loudly he was doing this -- that it was Sunday and he had missed nothing. This was why finishing a second bottle of wine before bed seemed like such a good idea in the first place.

He yanked the blackout curtains at his window closed -- the only sunlight more hateful than regular sunlight was sunlight reflecting off of snow, and there were daggers in his brain, and his resentful glance at himself in a mirror could only remind him to try to think of how all of this was Regina's fault, because self blame was for sober moments.

It was only when the noise downstairs seemed to continue unabated that he remembered to be silent.

It must have been Swan. Sure, he'd disappeared in a sufficiently spooky manner to get her and her friend out of the house as quickly as possible, but she would have to come back to take another look around at some point, right?

He did try to threaten her into building a magic hat for him.

At gunpoint.

With her friend tied up in his house.

That warranted further investigation, didn't it? He was mad, and even he knew that. Did it suddenly not matter anymore, now that Mary Margaret Blanchard had been cleared of all murder charges? Before, he'd been telling himself the reason he hadn't seen her yet the next day, or the day after, and so forth, had been because he'd shaken her beliefs. When he wasn't lying dead or at least slightly injured under that window, with only a hat left in his place, she had to have thought something unusual had taken place, that maybe, while crazy, he hadn't been about _that._

Well, he was apparently wrong, because even as he zeroed in on where the noise was coming from, he was certain. She hadn't forgotten about him. She hadn't given up.

He was nearly to the kitchen, uncertain whether he should flee or confront the intruder, when the clunk of movement that brought him this far joined with a recognizable, high whistling. He peered in only to find the kitchen empty of people, but still alive with activity, both current and recent. A brown grocery bag sat on the counter; the dishwasher was running, and yes -- a kettle shrieked atop his stove. Almost on reflex, he hurried to take it off the heat, his hangover overriding any logic about checking his blind spots or giving himself away.

Behind him: "Good morning, Jefferson."

He whipped around and very nearly dropped his hand on the gas burner, pulling it to his side with a barely-delayed hiss before falling very still.

Familiarity had become something of a form of torture in this place, surrounded by strangers he'd come to know for the lies they were unknowingly forced to live, just as much as those whose faces he'd known and remembered for years. All with new names, new memories, none of which were of the clever jumper and his magic hat, none of them of a single father wishing only to do right by his child, none of them of business arrangements, or tea parties, or betrayals. (All except one, and she hadn't yet deigned to drop by.) The ones who did know him knew his other self, the eccentric young recluse. Some didn't even appear to know that -- nobody seemed to have told Swan who lived in the house up in the hills.

Mr. Gold counted among them, and as Jefferson was one of the few people in town who didn't pay him rent, their most meaningful interaction in the last twenty-eight years had been an alarmed and disgusted older man recoiling from the screaming boy who, in his entreaties to everyone around him, had grabbed his cane in some enraged attempt to elicit _some_ recognition. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Gold should not have been there scrutinizing him right now, holding several of the bottles Jefferson had emptied and forgotten in the dining room the last few nights before, a dark slate apron tied over his vest and shirt.

Jefferson's voice, thick from dehydration and disuse, came out a depressed croak. "What are you doing in my house, Mr. Gold?"

His answer had the low, sophisticated cadence of the man who owned most of Storybrooke, not the high, impish tone that he'd known previous as the Dark One's "show voice," which always gave him an off-kilter, playful feel to clients that didn't know him better. "The Hell does it look like I'm doing?" he demanded, leaning on his cane to get to the trash can, already much fuller than its owner could remember it being.

Gold dumped the armload of empty glass bottles with little flourish or gentleness, and they crashed together so loudly that it hurt Jefferson right down to his clenching teeth. The limping man brushed him aside and turned off the stove, only seeming to acknowledge him again (despite being within biting distance of each other) after a deep breath that left a sour pinch to his face.

"Back to your room and shower, hatter, then put on a clean shirt. It's time we caught up a little."

 _Hatter?_ That was a different kind of familiarity, the most bitter kind for him. If he didn't feel so awful, it might have resembled hope, and that never failed to hurry his disappointment in this place. He searched Gold's face for something, any sort of clue that might tell him he should think it meant something, but unfortunately, the self-assuredness of his cursed self was just as sharp as the Dark One's.

Swan's appearance had a ripple effect on everything in town. He knew this; he believed this or he wouldn't have tried to make her create magic.

Maybe it affected Rumpelstiltskin, or maybe he'd been aware the whole time (he'd be the one to find a way, wouldn't he?) and had merely pretended not to know him all those years ago, but Jefferson was now certain he was awake. There was no other reason for that word to be on his lips, but he wouldn't let himself believe it.

"...What did you call me?"

Gold pulled back like Jefferson had just belched in his face.

"Shower, teeth brushed, clean clothes, or no answers. Be quick about it."

There were very few people, even before the curse, that could just _tell_ Jefferson what to do and have him actually listen the first time. The Dark One, quick on directives only in the context of a deal or a mission, had been one of them once. The boundaries he tended to set were rigid for the roles he took, and he wasn't one to encroach without reason. To say this was why Jefferson chose to obey him now would have been inaccurate, though he remembered. Hope, for as often as it betrayed him, led him back to his bedroom and master bath to wash the stink off himself.

Whether Gold had been aware this would be a problem, Jefferson's head hurt too much to remember that the downstairs shower would run cold if the dishwasher was going at the same time. He accepted it like penance, gulping down huge mouthfuls of water as it hit him, and when he emerged again, invading sunlight did not so sharply sting his eyes anymore. Teeth brushed, wet hair slicked back, he emerged to find piles of clean clothes waiting on his bed, blessedly fresh from the dryer, and he climbed tremblingly into garments chosen more for warmth than color coordination.

What this had given him other than a touch more clarity was time to collect questions, and he had many. He was humming with anticipation, the real possibility of talking to someone who knew who he was, who might even have a better idea of what was going on and how close the curse was to breaking, who wouldn't think he was just insane.

He did all of these things in good faith, just on good faith that Mr. Gold was not just Mr. Gold, and coming back into the rest of the house, he wasn't certain what he would do with that once he had it.

Did the Dark One have magic again? Had enough of the curse unraveled to allow that much? Could he make a deal with him? Is that what he was there for?

The smell of eggs and butter filled his nostrils, the sound of a hot pan crackling. It wasn't unlike the scents that would waft from Granny's Diner in the mornings, without that sweet undertow of syrup on the air. His stomach turned, but not as violently as it would have earlier, and Jefferson came to stare, perplexed, at the sight of a short man in a suit cooking breakfast.

The movement of Gold's hands was like a memory all its own, and while he manipulated a cast iron skillet and a spatula with confidence and ease, Jefferson could just as easily remember the gentle machinations that went into willing precious metal from straw and twine, the soft rotation of the spinning wheel, the uncanny stillness that the Dark One could achieve, even in motion, when he thought himself alone.

It was _him_. He had to remember. He had to be himself again, because Mr. Gold, though powerful, was never any of these things. Steady and unrelenting, he seemed to always be in perpetual motion, in silent pursuit of contract or payment. He was never still.

 _This_ man, however: perfectly still.

Without looking up from his work, the man spoke. "Tea is on the table. Sit."

The dining room had been tidied a touch, not that he left it especially dirty even when he was drinking. The cabinet had been closed, the candles he'd occasionally burned there were replaced with fresh tapers. A tea set with two placements awaited him, the cups overturned and awaiting use.

Jefferson lifted his own, and a particularly violent shudder seized him. Settled on the saucer, perfectly polished and carefully centered, there they were:

The rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/31/2018: I realize this is many months after the initial publication of the first two chapters, and with effort and feedback, I hope to put these out more regularly now. I apologize for my long absence. Work and a very sudden family death got in the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An important, remembered moment. The last time Jefferson saw the Dark One before going on what was supposed to be his final mission.

THE ENCHANTED FOREST - BEFORE THE FINAL MISSION

The tomb-like quiet of the Dark One's castle opened to them, and Jefferson once again stood beside his employer in a world with sensible clocks and staircases, doors that led where they said they would, and far fewer spontaneous singalongs and deceptive fruits. It was such that even Rumpelstiltskin seemed breathe a sigh of relief at the sound of his own boot heels clattering on the stone floor.

Jefferson had completely forgotten they were holding hands until the other man quickly pulled his own free and adjusted his sleeve.

His laboratory lay in its familiar colors and daylight, spools of gold awaiting picking up, glass bottles on their shelves and chests and vials and all other curiosities exactly where the Dark One left them prior to their abduction. It looked as though not even an hour had passed in their absence, the sun high and time enough to return home before dusk even if he went on foot.

Rumpelstiltskin gathered every spool on the shelf, producing a bag from nothing -- seemingly gratified at a return to tasks he knew and that only he, himself could prompt. He'd been on the odd trip with Jefferson before, and he was always a little twitchy once he stepped into their own world again, but the way he didn't really look at him, the absence of his usual sense of play -- it was like coming home to find something missing.

Jefferson remained friendly, though his smile felt uncharacteristically uncertain when Rumpelstiltskin held the bag out to him. "Why are you paying me?" he asked. "That wasn't where we were supposed to go."

"For your trouble, and a little extra." Rumpelstiltskin's voice had its old cadence back, but there was some weight in it. He sounded tired for a man who never seemed to need to sleep. "You'll have another mouth to feed soon enough, so you'd best start saving."

Said as though he was reminding him -- whether of the reality of his coming child somehow forgotten, or that he was now aware of it, too.

A nervous gasp of laughter. The hatter really was foolish to try to keep that a secret, and ill will from someone like the Dark One for any slight was not something he wanted to risk. So he hedged. "This is more than a little. Not that I'm complaining, but --"

"And by saving I actually _mean_ saving, not 'don't spend it all in one place.'"

Seeing he would not take no for an answer, Jefferson finally accepted the bag. "Do you still want me to go after the orb?"

"No." Rumpelstiltskin had already turned from him, busying his eyes and his hands with organizing one of his shelves of collected oddities. "I'll find someone else."

A jumper as good as him? Highly unlikely. Jefferson prided himself as one of his more trusted associates; he paid him well and they knew each other, but now that was the problem, wasn't it? Even with all the gold he held in his hands now, he worried. That there might be a catch. That his mistake had ruined something important. Something he needed.

"...Is this because I didn't tell you about Priscilla?"

"I already knew." Because of course he did. "But you did hesitate to tell me, so you at least thought it would be cause for concern."

His stomach dropped as though he were falling from a great height. "So you're firing me."

Rumpelstiltskin turned enough at least that they could face each other, but still his attention stayed on whatever occupied his hands -- presently a book with a strange, tangled ouroboros on the cover. Jefferson had never touched it before but looking at it now made him feel a strangely powerful irony in its presence that he couldn't place. Some of the Dark One's collectibles created similar gut feelings in him. He was not magic himself, but Rumpelstiltskin told him some magic could be sensed by anybody.

He did not appear so affected, himself, stroking the emblem before turning the tome over. "Personally, I would prefer to say you're voluntarily quitting the jumping business. I'd rather not hear from future employers wanting to know why you were let go instead of...well, _terminated_ , me being me -- and I'm far too busy to fool with that nonsense. So you quit, there will be no one that would need me as a reference to begin with, and we all get on with our existences."

Well, point. Not many people simply _left_ his employ, did they? But if Jefferson was hearing him right, he was not to be among those that left everything else in their lives, either. For lying to him. For making their journey back here from that labyrinth infinitely more uncomfortable and at least twice as risky.

Still, a smile, just as forced as the last. Something to attempt to call forth the often more friendly aura that filled their previous interactions but that felt too shaky, even shriveling at present.

"Why would I quit?"

Rumpelstiltskin's answer snapped at his face like a whip cracked. "Because you're having a _baby_ ," he said tersely, "and only a selfish moron would continue this especially dangerous and unpredictable line of work with full knowledge of that."

And it stung just as hard. Because yes, Jefferson had thought he might talk to him about taking on...shorter assignments, certainly. But quitting never entered his head. Because with an end to jumping, there came an end to so many freedoms, so many adventures.

And, well?

This.

The Dark One had no interest in leaving his words hanging in the air long enough to let Jefferson wallow in those thoughts, though, finishing with a matter-of-factness he often reserved only for favor seekers who needed things spelled out for them:

"So you're either an expectant father that cares about being an expectant father, or you're exactly the sort of person I can't trust to finish a job, and unfortunately, neither of those types of people especially interest me or my purse."

And he did care, didn't he? He couldn't remember his own father; why would he want to leave a child, or Priscilla, wondering where he was if he got into deeper trouble than usual? (Or Hell, the _same_ amount of trouble.)

Then why didn't this feel better than it did?

Rumpelstiltskin still wasn't looking at him, even as he shelved the book and returned to the middle of the room. Tired wasn't just in his voice; it was in his face, too. Like he was having a conversation he didn't want to, but somehow, in all his infinite power, he was having it because he felt obligated to.

And that was when Jefferson knew why it felt terrible: Because as soon as he was gone from this place, he would never set foot here again. He bit his lip. "Just. Tell me one thing."

It got Rumpelstiltskin to look at him. Large, expressive eyes missing their usual mischief. It left Jefferson with the desire to act but no certainty how he should, other than close the distance between them.

As though that were a threat in itself, Rumpelstiltskin didn't give him the satisfaction of asking his question, but he didn't retreat even an inch -- whatever had hold of him would not allow him to be chased in his own domain. "Did our most recent misadventure have any bearing on my decision?" he quipped.

Jefferson nodded, a deflating sigh falling out of him.

Rumpelstiltskin cut his gaze far and away, considering, but returned with a dismissive shrug. "...Not really."

When he turned from him again, Jefferson touched his shoulder. It felt like an invasion, even though in years past this had been a perfectly normal gesture between the two of them. The Dark One froze.

"Any regrets?" the hatter asked.

The smaller man was still, the tension only beginning to release when he found his answer. "None whatsoever." He pulled out of his grasp. "Go home to your wife, Jefferson."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the especially long delay in getting this next chapter to you. Despite my intentions to follow the style of an episode and sort of framing each chapter as the content you'd see before a commercial break, I'm struggling with one particular scene and thought it might be easier if I were to put these individual bits out as I finish them!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Queen of Narnia and her cruel trick. Jefferson does something foolish.

NARNIA - GREAT WOOD

Priscilla must have been able to sense that Jefferson had quickly grown anxious. Perhaps it was the bitter cold or the knowledge that their portal was unstable, but the more minutes that passed, the more eager he was to get them back. That was why she didn't chase him as he led the wolves away from her and their prize.

"What do you think you're doing?" she'd hissed when he handed her both the knife and the ring the Fox and the Cat had entrusted to him. 

"Something foolish," he answered, pecking her forehead. "Don't follow me. I'll come back." 

To his credit, he was very right about that. He had time enough to amble back to the path and throw snow on the tracks leading into their hiding place before he took off, the surrounding call of wolf howls close at his steps. This was foolish, but it was right. Even if Priscilla would have argued, had there been time, that she could lead and mislead their pursuers in a snowy wood better than he could. She who could alight a tree in seconds, who in dense wood had no trouble leaping from branch to branch if she was unencumbered. The trapmaker. The spy. Jefferson's brilliant beloved who, if he failed, would need to use all of her cunning to get herself back to that door, with no way for Queen Jadis or any of her agents to follow them. 

What he wasn't, that made him the better choice for this particular venture, was pregnant with their first child, making it painfully clear long before there was danger that no matter what, he was not the one that needed to get home safely, if this was going to go all wrong. 

 _But I can be clever,_ he had thought then.  _At the very least I can try._ But whatever he intended, he'd known he was not going to lose a pack of wolves in deep snow, wolves that were still gaining. Little tricks that Priscilla had taught him helped -- How to create a misleading trail and then backtrack. Spying patters of prints in the snow off his beaten path, he left for the wolves turns in his tracks that would suddenly be dotted by the prints of a rabbit or a deer with no explanation -- taking timely moments to do this and return to his escape, but enough to create small diversions and hopefully confuse their noses. 

It had not been a  _usual_ fear, being pursued by great predators such as these -- he could only think now that he had not fled for fear of being devoured. When they ran initially, he'd heard their mistress clearly enough that she wanted them brought back alive. It was to be returned to it -- with either his wife in tow, or the knife they were sent to retrieve, or either of their rings -- that had been the worry. Since he had none of those things, it was easy, when returned to the palace, to maintain some of his usual charm and bravado (even if the elements and the length of that jaunt had left him a mite disheveled and not his devil may care best. The wolves, at the very least, were a touch surprised when, upon surrounding him and demanding that he come quietly, he answered with an almost chipper "Oh, you can  _talk;_ that's helpful."

As if he didn't already know, based on what Fox and Cat had told them. 

A couple had remained to try to sniff out Priscilla, and the rest leading him away hoping he'd led them far enough that she would not be discovered. 

At the start, the Queen's palace had been a bit more of a challenge than they had expected, not just formed of ice itself but planted in the center of a frozen lake, making any approach by day or night painfully obvious if you weren't smart about these things -- and even then, it was a hell of a feat. Somehow they had surpassed that, even found the knife they were looking for (so many treasures hidden away and yet only one knife -- that was lucky). Coming back in without any trickery or fancy acrobatics would have felt almost anticlimactic if he didn't anticipate that his audience with the Queen of Narnia wouldn't be one of the most difficult negotiations of his life. 

The royal throne room felt more like a cave of ice, the echoes and acoustics too organic for the regular functions of court; here the simple utterances of any of the Queen's subordinates had the shaking tones of a lost cry in the dark, and even her low, terse command to bring Jefferson forward reminded one too much of the growl of a sleeping bear. Even seated he could tell she would tower over him by several heads even without the natural dais separating them. Her appearance in general had the look of one who'd frozen to death -- eyes pale and washed out, her skin virtually colorless, and even adorned in heavy finery, no warmth touched her cheeks. It honestly shocked the senses a little to not hear the crackle of bones or shattering ice when she moved. 

She was not human, or at least was only as human as possibly the Dark One, and with the magic he'd been told she possessed, that did not surprise him in the slightest. This realization was perhaps the only thing about her that didn't make him uncomfortable, but it gave him a place to start from -- to hopefully less disastrous results than the last preternatural monarch he tried to mince words with.

"Why came you to my palace, Son of Adam?" Her voice cut through the air like an arrow fired. The crisp shock of black of her pupils, focusing on him, held him still for seconds he didn't count. 

He might have never moved or commenced another thought, but there was that phrase again. The words Fox and Cat used for  _human._

Jefferson cleared his throat, electing not to point out the most obvious, that her sentries had brought him here just now. It was too early to test. "Oh." His eyebrows went up, his expression matter-of-fact and (thanks to his current bout of shock) appreciatively casual. "To steal from you, your majesty." 

The Queen laughed -- more in surprise than good humor; the latter looked as though it might have cracked her porcelain face if she ever felt it. Her attendant, a man with a great, long beard who might have been as tall as Fox on his hind legs, mumbled, but his eyes darted between their prisoner and the queen every other second. "You are either very foolish or very brave to admit such a thing to me."

Both. He was definitely both. 

"But not so foolish as to lie when there would be little point in it," Jefferson returned. In itself a partial lie; it was just poor strategy to open on one when he hadn't thought of what he felt would be a convincing backstory. 

It was a smooth rejoinder, and the Queen smiled with satisfaction. "And the blade you took from my treasury: What would possess you to want such a thing?" Her questions were coming with a deliberate slowness, each word thought of twice before leaving her mouth, and her lips stayed parted in the silence to follow; Jefferson was reminded grimly of a snake tasting the air with its tongue. 

He didn't think to sell out a client for all the trouble their employers had caused them so far. Better to play this off as a personal challenge than a transaction. "In all fairness, it was the easiest thing to conceal and carry." 

"And do you know what I do to thieves?" Among canine species, to be watched so fiercely, one would look away to give themselves relief and show submission. The Queen stared at Jefferson so that he couldn't even will himself to look away, and that was where he faltered. It was nothing to play oneself off as cool and collected even in the face of danger to an assailant that did not keep you still, that might find your grace disarming, where an odd glance around if played correctly allowed you to perform to the entire room and not just one person. 

Perhaps it was the cold.

"...I don't imagine it's anything pleasant, or else you'd never be rid of them." 

They both heard the slight shake in his voice. Her smile was far less detached, knowing. "Oh, I like you. Maugrim?" She rose and it was as though she'd grown to twice her own size, beneath the folds of a gown as soft as fresh snow her long legs unfolding to bring her up to her true height, the arms under heavy bell sleeves were inhumanly long, the fingers spindling around her staff going on much further before attaching to a palm, again of such paleness that one could scarce see where fingernails ended and bone and flesh began. She was the wisp of a creature that hid behind trees in deep forests and moved when the branches did and struck if you opened your eyes to see her, the claw that slid down your back in the dark when you doubted your own solitude. She was the demon that could ride into battle ahead of her army, clad in the hair of a murdered demigod. All of this, clad in royal finery.

For a fleeting moment, Jefferson wondered how Fox could bring himself to steal from royal wardrobes if this was the example monarchs set in his home world. 

The Queen stepped down from the dais, and in that split-second of her approaching she seemed... _more_ normal. Her height no longer so encroaching. Her arms tucked proper about herself. Her hands a person's hands, and she left the jumper asking himself whether he'd just witnessed the truth of her being or if his growing dread caused him to see things.  

A great black wolf stepped up beside him, answering the name she had spoken. 

"Bring him to the garden." 

The wolves herded him ahead of her through the passages and out into the bitter wind yet again. He thought how few windows there were, how featureless the walls seemed even when ice gave way to the crumbling remains of a stone edifice, something built before her coming. He thought of the lack of tapestries, of portraits, of people or a proper layout. All because it was easier than thinking of her following behind them, gaze boring holes into his back. They emerged into a yard lined with statues, placed with little sense of order but with few uneven gaps between them. Each creature, from the four-legged, the predators, the scavengers, even mixes of human and something else, were in their own ways illustrations of surprise, of horror, of anguish. Some reaching hands or paws up, in silent plea, others in some hopes of averting pain, still more turning away in an eternal wince. 

Transformation, Fox had said. It was one of her favorite tricks. 

A hand placed itself gently on his shoulder, and he found himself looking the still-long way up at the Queen's face. "Where is your companion?" 

His eyes shot back to the stone shape in front of him, a rearing centaur, perfectly balanced by his remaining hooves on the aged stone floor but undone in his own horror.

He was never going to leave here alive.

Part of him had planned on it -- hadn't he? Wasn't that why he gave Priscilla the other ring?

 _Then make it worth something. Get her home by keeping her to yourself._ "Companion, your majesty?" 

The hard blade of a finger traced the shape of his cheek, and he was so certain that if she bore down she'd puncture. "Oh, don't start lying now; you were doing so well." Her voice would have sounded soothing, but something of that hidden inhumanity that had peeked out just before -- it remained in her voice, like the world got darker around him when those cadences rattled in his bones. "Two of you were seen escaping. The other a Daughter of Eve. Where is she?"

His aim was true. His words came with greater ease, because he had decided. "I couldn't say; we were separated." 

"That's better." Her leaving his side felt almost like a gale suddenly stopping, though she only came around to stand before the statue he'd chosen to watch instead of her, instead of he beasts showing their teeth all around him in warning if he were to try to flee. In the dark, the Queen was intensely visible, as though light shone from within. "She, with the spoils," she mused, "while you stand before me." Her head tilted, her strange, frozen locks a muted gold, the loose ends tossing to the side, the rest bound up over her head to give the impression of a point in the back. "That doesn't seem fair, does it?"

She didn't have hold of him long enough to stop him from dropping his gaze to the ground beneath her. 

"Now tell me: How many more of you have come?"

"More?" Jefferson shook his head, confused. "None. We came alone." Did that mean there were more humans somewhere? People that could help Priscilla maybe? 

"I don't believe you."

Tension welled in him and he had to make himself take a breath. The only thing that kept her from attacking, from sending her guards after him to see what parts would taste the best was that he continued to talk to her. And so he plead his case because there was no other choice. He could have a little more time to breathe, to go on thinking, and then there would be nothing, and resolute or not his heart was not ready for it. "I'm a-afraid you have me at a loss for how I am to prove such a thing to you," he stammered. "Two of us came and our int-tent was for two of us to leave." 

The head of her staff reached toward him and brushed his hair out of his face, and he dared not move -- he was even a measure grateful that it was an object and not her hand.

"That will be for my hunters to decide," she said.

While he shot a glance to some, any of the wolves watching them, none so much as twitched. Just as well as they could talk, they knew when they were commanded. Part of him missed the wolves in his own world. Larger, a damn sight more dangerous if you caught them on the wrong night of the year or crossed a more intelligent one -- but familiar. Following rules he understood. Not under the thrall of whatever the Queen of Narnia happened to be. 

"How did the two of you come?"

He looked up. Her staff had withdrawn. "Pardon?"

"How did you and your companion come to Narnia? You are not of this world." 

He could nearly say the same of her, but he would try his luck on something else. "Magic." 

"...Magic." The Queen looked at him as though he'd just grown bat ears -- no such thing could shock or disgust her, but she could still remark upon its incongruity. Jefferson, to her, suddenly looked much more out of place than before. 

"Yes?" he hedged, moving toward hope. He couldn't count on his knowledge or his access to it saving anything, but it was something. "It's how we do much of our travelling, though she's made off with that as well." He didn't even have his hat, and he was beginning to regret putting it safely away, even if he wasn't sure where, exactly, he could go from here if he tried. 

"Your people have magic." Her eyes narrowed, a silent warning for him not to lie to her again, but there was just enough belief there that she didn't directly contradict him.

"Er, yes." Just go with it, Jefferson. You have nothing to lose. "Occasionally. Whether it's by birth or by picking it up and using it." What a terrible week to quit working for the Dark One. Perhaps he could name-drop? Would he ever forgive him for doing such a thing though? And was it worth the risk -- even if she  _did_ know if him, there was no guarantee it would be a positive association. 

A sound of half a laugh. Confusion and skepticism had given way to something he trusted less: confidence. Relief, even. The Queen lifted her chin haughtily. "Then I misspoke before. You are not a Son of Adam." 

Fox and Cat would be most disappointed to hear that, but Jefferson had no idea what that meant for the here and now. He could have told her as much. His father's name was Jim, after all. 

"And knowing this, man from a world with magic: Do you know its universal rule, what is true of all magic on every plane?"

Gods knew that Rumpelstiltskin would manifest and clothesline him if he didn't know the answer to that question. "It always comes with a price." 

"Just so." She took another step toward him and seemed to grow taller, not like before. A weight was pressing from inside of his chest, like it meant to break out. She was circling him and he dared not move even to just follow her with his eyes. "And what price do you imagine your companion will pay for the treasure she's carrying? What does a dagger normally take?" 

Jefferson swallowed. "...Life, your majesty." 

"Very. Good." She stopped behind him. "As does this one, though not always as quick as one suspects." Something hard touched the center of his back, and he could not tell if he felt her or the weapon she wielded or something else. He was stock still. "Your companion may run awhile, but so long as she carries that talisman, it will devour her years. Perhaps slowly enough not to notice at first. Without blood, it will just steal her youth. A life slowly taken, moment by moment. She can hide. She could be cunning as a rabbit and go to ground before teeth can snap at her. But soon her bones will be too heavy for her to carry quickly, her heart too weak. Who's to say whether she'll have time to part with it before the end, even if she manages to escape? -- And she will not."

"Priscilla." He hadn't thought. He imagined something might happen to the user, that Fox and Cat would get their comeuppance if there was any to be had if they decided to use their new trinket. But to merely hold it? And his mind was not on his own life and the very real possibility that he was about to be stabbed or turned to stone or worse. He was thinking of Priscilla, who doesn't know why she's suddenly so tired, who feels her muscles ache and tense, her bones creak. Priscilla whose hair turns silver in a matter of days. Delayed perhaps if she hunts with the dagger, but why would she while on the run. 

And then he remembered the baby. The dagger would not rush just one life. If she were to age rapidly, how quickly would the baby grow? And would her body be able to handle the strain? 

The Queen's voice was close to him, and he felt himself shrinking. "I say this to you, because you are right: Nothing pleasant happens to thieves of the crown. And before I say goodbye to you, as a thanks for your honesty, I just wished you to know the agony your friend will feel before my wolves tear her to pieces." 

A squawk of an objection escaped before a sudden burst of cold hit in him in the spine, radiating over his extremities faster than words could form. 

Then he would know and think nothing for some time to follow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one that I tried to get out quickly. Doing this scene by scene seems to be working better for me!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude: Priscilla in the woods.

Losing her husband was an eventuality that, with all honesty, Priscilla should have been ready for.

She had been on more than a few jobs with him in the past; sometimes her missions tended to go a little safer when someone who knew her was watching her back -- leave alone that once or twice, before they really decided they liked each other, they were rivals going after the same prize. The point was that she knew her husband's changing moods while working, and the greatest danger to their ventures thus far was his anxiety, when it had the bad manners to pop up. When he started visibly itching to finish the job and return home, that was when mistakes were about to be made, and unfortunately for the both of them, he started showing signs of this almost immediately and none of it letting up. While she could not, like him, stomach capture and then hoping that a little cheek would buy them enough leeway to make an escape -- an eventuality that led to her having to drop two wolf sentries when getting in and out of the palace should have been a simple, quiet run. She could not even blame him for that one; his quick turn of phrase and casual body language in pinchy situations got her two clean shots, after all. 

It hadn't even been the hope that a wink and a smile would give them pause this time that bothered her so much; it was the trip and the branch-snaps that came of trying to go too fast through snow that  _crunched_ when they walked too hard and swift on it, and there was much of that long before they reached the frozen lake upon which the palace rested. More of it when they made for an expeditious retreat, pursued by more wolves. 

She didn't tell Jefferson that her abdomen was beginning to hurt when they stopped in the wood and he tucked her away, but maybe he sensed something was weighing her down. So when they passed the place where they'd made a lean-to of the hollow of an ancient, gigantic tree, its roots obscured by the thicket of branches and dead leaves around it, he helped her settle low with the supplies and gear they'd hidden, and covered her, throwing fresh-powder snow in front of him to cover tracks as he left her to do, as he told her with his usual little grin, "something foolish." 

He also said he would come back once he'd led them off, and she didn't fight him then, even with the dagger and his ring in her hands, knowing this was something _she_ should have been doing, not him. She was the hunter. While Jefferson knew forests by their flora, able to find any rare plant or mushroom, edible or poison, as quick as a whip, she knew them by fauna; her parents had taught her well, how to identify tracks, how to cover your own or avoid leaving them altogether, and a million other telltale signs to identify a creature's passing. She could identify and plink a ptarmigan in a snowbank at a hundred paces, pick out the holes of a rabbit warren that were in the most heavy use, even trail a bear just based on how branches and leaves had been shifted in the undergrowth. More importantly: she could, and had in the past, avoid hungry pack animals that'd picked up on her. 

The pain stopped her fighting him, and even as she stilled her breath and waited, she had to tell herself that she'd shown him a few of her best tricks -- how to misdirect, how to disguise, even how to use the tracks of others against a hunter. He would remember them. He had to; would he have tried this if he didn't?

Probably. 

Soon the pack trampled past, the sound of their paws clattering through fast and determined -- a sure sign they were too focused on catching up to think that one of them might have been left behind. For as long as she could, she listened for any changes in their movement as they grew more distant. She pulled her scarf up over her nose, more to mask her breath in the cold, warmed by the gentle reverberation of it against the cloth -- blooming over her cheeks and soothing the crisp cold out of her veins with each slow exhale. Her hand smoothed over her stomach through many layers of clothing. The ache was still there, her mind rolling over every move she'd made since coming here. There were a couple risky maneuvers in getting out to the palace that might have stretched a muscle, a time when she needed to be agile and didn't account for a foot slipping on the ice. 

It couldn't have been the baby, she told herself. They'd only just confirmed she was pregnant; she wasn't even showing yet. Perhaps it was all the physical activity on top of ignoring the nausea that was still dogging her. Maybe pain referring from all the minor aches and pains the midwife had told her were all perfectly normal.  _Best not be you, little one,_ she thought.  _Your nursery is on the line here._

In silence she waited -- not just for Jefferson's return, but also with the certainty that the wolves might come back this way if they gave up their search; the ache remained dull, but at rest was far less severe. She thought of how they would tell their child of their last adventure someday, and how they were secretly there with them the entire time. Jefferson would not spare a detail on his heroics, and Priscilla would not miss a moment to tell them that love made him do unpredictable, dangerous things to himself, like leading a pack of hyper-intelligent wolves into the wood while they, the mother and child, had to sit on their duffs in the snow.

When the sound of footsteps did reach her ears, she was nearly dozing, and then she was completely still. The patter of enormous paws -- fewer than before. Not searching -- all going in the same direction. 

But there were human steps among them, a touch heavier. Different patter. Slower and covering greater distance at a walk. 

Priscilla couldn't move even to try to see out, but she knew, long before a gruff command from one of the passing earned a telltale, snarky reply. 

He'd been caught and was just as lucky that they hadn't done what normal wolves would do. But he had to be aware of where he was, how close they were -- nothing in what she could hear told her that he'd given her location away. He probably wouldn't even look in this direction, because he knew better. 

 _Good lad, Jefferson,_ she thought,  _but there are too many of them for me to leap out of hiding and save you this time, and you'd never forgive me if I risked it._

So she would have to go and fetch him, would she? 

Manageable. One quick-witted jumper couldn't have been much harder to smuggle out of a castle than a knife, after all -- provided he was smart and kept himself alive. But she would have to wait until they were long past her before taking up her pursuit -- especially since she had no idea if Jefferson had managed to kill some of them or if others had stayed behind to look for her. 

He would just have to be smart and keep himself alive until then. "They almost  _never_ order executions, these lords and ladies and kings and queens," he joked, "Because we're just too pretty, you see." 

This time, she hoped he was right. Perhaps the Queen would fancy his wide-eyed wonder. 

 _He'd best behave himself,_ she thought. 

"Out of earshot" meant two widely different metrics when comparing a human with a wolf, so it was an hour and nearly dawn before Priscilla stirred. She was warm under cloaks and sandwiched between bedrolls, the hollow and the leaves and even the snow creating sufficient cover from the wind. The wood was still but for the creak of branches in the wind. 

 _All right, baby?_ she thought.  _It's time to go get your father._

Priscilla moved, and as though baby had an objection, the pain in her middle redoubled with sudden intensity, and even as she crawled out of hiding, she doubled over, biting down on her own arm to stifle a cry. This time it didn't come in a burst -- instead it was an explosion that just seemed to hold at the highest point of its intensity. It felt almost as though her insides had not so much shifted as been  _shoved._ And it was still happening. Her skin felt... _tight_ there. But it did not subside, and it wasn't even a little cry that finally burst out but a scream -- unmuffled, and shaking the forest around her; the silence that followed for seconds after tense, and expecting. 

She almost didn't hear the howl in the distance the first time, tried to muster herself even as tears stung and solidified on her cheeks. 

_Stop screaming you must stop they are coming but IT HURTS SO MUCH WHAT IS HAPPENING_

The second howl was much nearer, and Priscilla groped for a weapon, her fingers wrapping around a handle in the dark just as she could hear a creature breathing and snuffling, drawing ever nearer, her uncontrolled puffs and other sounds an easy beacon to follow.  

Logically, someone who wasn't in stomach-splitting agony would reason that the wolves had taken Jefferson alive and this one might mean to do the same to her, and if the Queen were amenable to keeping her husband around, she might also be offered medical attention of some kind. 

Priscilla was not one of those someones, and in spite of every sob she failed to suck back telegraphing her position, fear that should have paralyzed her, a leap that had perhaps meant to startle and subdue rather than kill? Met instead with the end of a blade and a pitiful, final wine. 

The source of the pain, whatever it was, stopped as suddenly as it had gotten worse, and with relief as much as exhaustion, Priscilla collapsed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I am attempting to structure this fic and later entries as if they were season 1-style episodes, so there will be some jumping back and forth, and very likely, chapters ending at about where you'd expect it to cut to title or commercial. Furthermore, it seems fair to slap a big "AU" sticker on this one because I am not acknowledging any information that happens after season 4a, including characters, nor am I acknowledging any supplemental materials, such as the graphic novels. My intent is to try to give certain plot threads more time to cook, or to avoid losing potential plot threads altogether that were lost in the show due to lack of availability. This story will inevitably lead to more. Please be patient with me. It's been a very long time since I've written fanfiction.
> 
> Additionally: If I receive any questions in the comments that I don't feel will be answered in the narrative as things unfold, I will include answers in the notes of the next chapter!


End file.
